It's Magic
by punchdrunkMarvel
Summary: Dirk Strider, the last human on earth, exists in a dismal future until he discovers a time machine planted in his closet. On an island in the Pacific Ocean, he meets a pumpkin farmer and her grandson, Jake English. During his quest to venture to Texas, he discovers that Jake has a plan to leave the island as well. A plan based solely on children's fiction. AU; Dirk/Jake
1. Jake and the Giant Pumpkin

In a dismal future with a birthrate of zero and a death rate of "inevitable," world-weary Dirk Strider stands on the top of his apartment block, held up only now by welded scaffolding in an endless ocean. He contemplates death as he stares down at the gently lapping waves below, but then, that wouldn't get him anywhere really. Except to hell, and he isn't quite ready for that. A swift wind is constantly making hurricane conditions on top his home these days, making it nearly impossible to fish. He ducks back inside, letting his body drop gracefully onto the floor of his living area.

He cracks an Orange Crush and slumps down at his table. "Happy sixteenth," he congratulates himself with a murmur. He can't help but feel that the day of reckoning is upon him, with his resources ever dwindling. Either something needs to change, and _fast_, or he is just, and always has been, doomed to a premature death inside this towering refuge.

He can connect with certain people from the past, but not the _right _people. Not the people that are able to help him, if indeed, anyone _would _be able to help him. No, it won't be very useful to send an instant message imploring the help of an average 15-year-old girl. _S.O.S. Days numbered. Send help approximately one zillion years into the future. _Now there's a great idea. Should he start rationing now and get to work on a jet pack or, in spirit of a defeatist attitude, grab his sword and make it quick and painless?

He decides to stop thinking so dark and heads to his room. Why not make some sick-nasty beats or watch _You, Me and Dupree _for the twentieth time that week? Nothing to make him feel better like watching some actors he had already outlived cavorting around on his television. He starts his computer, preparing for an inundation of birthday wishes and finding only one, solitary offline message from someone he'd never talked to before. He accepts it, unable to see the harm in it, even if it is a troll.

_turntechGodhead: happy 16th bro. time machine is in the closet, meet here in 2012. bring your sword. peace._

Dirk stares at the cryptic message, his eyes never faltering from the red text as he tries to decipher the meaning of it. There is no time machine in the closet, and he doesn't known anyone named turntechGodhead (although the name is so reputable it's hard not to believe). However, this person had known that it was his birthday, and he sees no harm in perusing the closet. And there it is.

In his bedroom closet, a sleek, metallic blue hunk of metal, shaped like a pill, apt to Dirk's six foot stature. He hauls it out with reasonable ease, assuming it to be made of aluminum and other lightweight alloys, and lays it flat on the floor, like a sleeping bag. It takes up a considerable amount of space in his room.

This makes no sense. Obviously, if a giant metal turd had been seated in his closet since the beginning of time, he'd have known about it. The fact that it has just inexplicably landed there in the course of a day, no, _hours, _is beyond comprehension. And no, he will not chalk this one up to elaborate practical jokes, because the barren earth is sans just one other living human being besides Dirk. He hurries back to his computer and spams turntechGodhead with inquisitive messages, subtly and ironically as possible for a cool kid with this magnitude of consternation, but to no avail.

Minutes pass. An hour, two, three more elapse. Dirk feels restless, lying in bed, lounging on the sofa, playing X-Box aimlessly while a shiny, hermetically sealed capsule sits on his floor, ready to be investigated. And still, no answer from the mysterious contributor of the gift. When night falls and all of the lights of his solitary box glitter on the surface of dark water, he decides to open it. With clicks and whirs, it comes to life almost instantly, lighting up with bright, almost neon words and dates and numbers.

A stiff, black seat reclines backwards, filling the bulk of the little pod. Somewhere to sit. To idle in helpless unimportance while this little machine, claiming so much, such a huge accomplishment to the study of science, will take him back to the year 2012. What does he have to lose? Dirk grabs his sword, his puppet, and water to last a few days, taking his seat in the machine and closing the hatch overhead. If nothing else, it's elaborately designed.

An arcade of lights inside glow like galaxies in the otherwise complete darkness, and Dirk quickly determines how to configure dates. He enters the year on a large touch screen in front of him. He enters the year, _2012_. The date, he enters, _June 6. _Then he takes a deep breath before stilling his lungs, pulling the lever to thrust himself into the past.

* * *

Being belted inside the metal turd (which Dirk will now refer to it out of spite during a bout of motion sickness), a timeline rapidly flashing before his eyes on every myriad screen, is similar to being trapped inside a garbage can while rolling down a steep bank as everyone laughs, without the laughing of course, more like just a thousand whirs and beeps and alarms that could or could not have been signifying inevitable doom, all moving too quickly for his ears to keep track of. Finally, a monumental crash and complete blackness. Dirk is lucky not to have been stabbed through the neck upon impact.

He twists open the hatch with some trouble, and as sunlight pours in through the hole, he unbuckles himself and climbs out painstakingly, instantly wishing he hadn't. He is in the middle of what appears to be a jungle, hot and humid as all get out, with a splitting headache. The turd is completely trashed. Whether or not this thing was meant for multiple uses, it is not going to be getting him to another time. Not that he will ever want to return to the future anyway.

Removing his belongings and ditching the totaled pod, Dirk heads out. He knows little about survival in the wilderness despite a genius IQ, and it is just beginning to sink in that this little expedition could cause his death. His death, which would go unnoticed in a different world, where no one knew his name, except possibly this turntechGodhead, waiting for him in Houston, Texas. And his current location remains a mystery.

The only thing to do is search for something undefined - animals or buildings or cave drawings or _anything,_ anything that would lead him to civilization. For all he knew, he could be on some doomed island, inhabited by incommunicado cannibals waiting to drain his blood and cut his ears off to hang on their Christmas trees. Dirk smirks at his katana, gleaming in the sun. He'll massacre yet another generation before he lets _that _happen.

Despite all this, taking a look around, the forest seems habitable. There are ample bodies of fresh water and wildlife. Weather conditions are not as harsh as he earlier perceived. He decides to take a break, to reserve his energy, and slumps down beneath a tree. Fortuitously, he falls into a deep sleep, experiencing something comparable to jet lag, _time lag, _he coins drowsily once he wakes up. The sun is lower along the horizon now, but still providing adequate light, and the arousal of his nap is not accompanied by only silence.

A voice, presumably human, foists itself upon his ears. At first it sounds like keening, wailing, terrible noises that make him cringe inwardly. But he follows them, never having heard another human voice aside from his own, in real time of course, and shortly realizes the voice is singing. Singing in just about as tone deaf a way one can sing, but cheerfully, and the voice itself is not entirely unpleasant. The song: a dissonant rendition of the _Sound of Music's _My Favorite Things.

He spies cautiously from behind a large tree, immense in circumference, at a boy, possibly in his age range, lying on a gently sloping bank with his knees up, facing a small body of water and fiddling with a big green mass of tissue paper and dowel rods and cloth and ribbon, all conglomerating to form an ugly dragon looking thing, a _kite. _Dirk had never had one of his own. And upon closer inspection, he realized the thing in his other hand is a needle. He watches silently for as long as he can stand, the obnoxious rendering of the song punctuated by the occasional, "Ouch!" when he pricks himself.

Finally, Dirk emerges from his hiding spot, flustered rather than nervous, and feeling superior. "Give it to me," he says as the boy gapes up at him, big green eyes wide and face slightly embarrassed (with good reason because no one should ever have to hear his singing).

"What's with that sword?" he asks impolitely, and Dirk realizes he hasn't been the most gracious either, suddenly appearing out of the woods and demanding his kite. "And the puppet?"

Deeming him harmless enough, he tosses his sword aside, sets Li'l Cal down among a patch of wild clover. "Just lemme see that thing, dude."

The boy pauses, unsure of himself as his eyes settle unwillingly on the toy. Then he hands it up to Dirk, cautiously, along with the needle, his tan fingers much slimmer in comparison to his but obviously not as dextrous. Dirk throws caution to the wind and plops down next to him, locating the slight tear in the fabric and beginning to work on it. The two young men are silent until Dirk finishes, handing the dragon kite back, unharmed and repaired. He hopes that this will give him some credit with the boy, the only human he has ever seen.

"Thank you," he says softly, a smile evening out the tension in his face and causing him to look even younger. "You're a right one to be wandering out of the woods. Where the devil did you come from?"

"Texas," Dirk answers bluntly, not about to give any more information than that. "What's the date?"

"Sixth of June, I believe," declares the boy, seeming quite taken aback.

"And the year?"

"...2012, why would you ask such a silly question?"

It worked. He can't believe that this thing actually worked, and he is currently in the year 2012. It must be a dream, some stress imposed on his brain from bumping it on something or other. In reality, he's probably unconscious in the crawl space, knocked himself out by some ninja antics. He lets his body collapse back in the grass, feel its cool, soft texture lick his neck and his bare arms. And this boy, the first real person he has ever seen, looming over him, looking very skeptical. Thank God he's so friendly - the last thing Dirk needs is a bitter taste of the human race left in his mouth. "Er... are you quite all right?"

"No, I'm about to wake up from the most wonderful dream," he responds impassively. "I envy you, flying kites on a hillside. How many people do you know? You're the first I've ever met."

He seems nonplussed, and sad. "Not many friends, but they come and go every day here. Sort of assumed you were one of them."

"One of who?"

"Tourists! They come here in droves to see Grandma's giant pumpkin."

A giant pumpkin. Is this the kind of thing that, as a person of the past, he is now expected to be enthralled by? This pumpkin better be the size of a goddamned house. That's when the boy suddenly jumps up, grabbing him by the hand. "Look, I'll show you!" Dirk nearly tears away, not accustomed to human contact, but does his best to keep up as the boy scuttles up a little hill, nearly losing his balance and clutching Dirk for support. He grins crookedly as Dirk raises an eyebrow, the greatest display of emotion he could usually muster.

Seated at the center of a sprawling field is the touted giant pumpkin, and giant, indeed it is. It towers menacingly over the rest, estimated more than five times Dirk's height, superimposed against a dusky sky like a crappy greeting card. All that's needed is to Sharpie shop a face on that sucker and bam, Happy Halloween. And behind it, all lined up to take some shitty souvenir photo are masses of people, _real people_, so easily impressed as to wait God knows how long to get their picture taken with a vaunted vegetable of mammoth proportions. Is this the place he has risked his life to come back to? A glorified pumpkin farm?

"Where are we?" he asks, suddenly turning back to his companion and nearly smacking the dweeby glasses off his face out of frustration.

"Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean," the kid answers most seriously, his messed up teeth so white and his eyes so big and green and his skin so smooth and perfect that Dirk can practically smell the innocence on him. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Dirk mumbles quietly, not about to share his shortcomings with an almost-stranger. That reminds him. "What's your name?"

The kid grins, extending his hand. "Jake English, pleasure to meet you!"

Dirk shakes it, against better judgement. "I'm Dirk Strider."


	2. Treehouse

The pumpkin is an edible gourd, genus _Cucurbita_, family _Cucurbitaceae_. The largest pumpkin grown to date (besides Grandma's) weighs in at over 1800 pounds. A popular harvest crop in the modern day States which thrives in warm temperatures and has established its own cultural meaning in several spots in the world - typically as an object of significant magical potential. So it is fitting of Jake, the boy Dirk has met only minutes ago, to explain, when Dirk inquires, that the pumpkin has grown so large thanks to his grandmother's witchcraft.

Dirk simply shakes his head silently in response to this, not about to recant the principles of science on account of some hick pumpkin farmers. As they near the actual behemoth of a vegetable, Dirk stares up at it, towering over him. In an instant, a woman appearing of no more than thirty emerges next to his right ear, spouting stats. "The giant pumpkin is 16 meters, or roughly 52 feet tall and weighs almost ten tons! It has a diameter of 19.3 meters, or roughly 63 feet, and a circumference of-"

"60.63 meters, yes, I do basic math," Dirk snaps in response to the rude intrusion. The woman simply places her arms akimbo and smiles toothily in a way not unlike Jake. She is roughly Jake's size, a bit shorter, with long, black hair and round, convex glasses.

"Well, we've got a smartass on our hands!" she exclaims. "Where'd you find this one, Jake?"

"In the woods," he responds, holding up the ugly dragon. "He helped me fix my kite."

"Then thanks for taking care of my grandson, Mister..."

"No mister. I'm Dirk Strider."

She grins and shakes his hand, and, once again, Dirk obliges this ritual. He had no idea that in society, shaking hands was a thing that people actually did. Did they also really say "cheese" when posing for a picture, or pinch each other on their birthdays? His knowledge of culture is strictly theoretical, and discerning the nuances of human behavior, whether or not he was literally going to have buy someone a Coke if they happen to say the same word at the same time to break a foisted vow of silence, is going to take a while.

"The name is Jade Harley," she says cheerfully. "Where are you from, Dirk?"

"Houston, Texas," he responds, his arm tired when she finally releases him.

"How'd you get here?" she questions, which is further than Dirk wishes to go, but what did it matter? He had nothing to lose if these people didn't believe him.

"A time machine," he says seriously.

Jake exchanges a look with his grandmother, but neither of them look dubious or unbelieving. Despite the fact that he's telling the complete truth, he almost wants to shout, '_Come on' _at their trustfulness. But there's something worldly-wise about Jade, experience in her bright green eyes that says she has seen everything, including magic pumpkins and time machines and even real dragons, not just a torn tissue-paper-and-ribbon monstrosity constructed by her oblivious grandson.

"Then you'll be needing somewhere to stay, won't you?" she comments gently. Dirk says nothing, reluctant to accept charity from strangers.

"He can stay in my room!" Jake pipes up, all silly smiling and twinkling eyes, like a little kid begging _can we keep him_?

"No, that won't do, Jake," Jade chides. "He needs his own place to stay." At this, Dirk feels relieved, and Jake looks disappointed. She pauses for a few seconds, the ambient light from several strategically placed lamp posts, standing sentry around the patch, dance on her preternaturally young face. "The treehouse!"

"Capital idea!" her grandson applauds. Dirk is not too sure of how he feels about staying in a treehouse, but Li'l Cal on his back seems to like the prospect of this very much. Besides, it's only temporary, until he can find a way to get off the island.

"Is that all right with you, Dirk?" Jade asks expectantly.

"I'll work for you," Dirk responds. He really doesn't have another choice in the matter, because he won't accept anything for free.

"Excellent! It'll be great to have another strong young man to help out around the farm. And I'm sure Jake and Bec will appreciate your company too."

Dirk doesn't bother to ask who Bec is, because two living people,_ real people, _besides himself, at this moment seems more than enough to keep him on the brink of a sensory overload. And concerning working on a pumpkin farm, he just hopes that he can keep from getting a sunburn and an infected brain. Jade clears her throat slightly as Jake bounces up and down, grinning excitedly, the dragon in his hands going ignored. "Dirk, will you be joining us for dinner?"

And on an empty stomach, he really has no choice but to accept.

* * *

The treehouse is more like a tree penthouse, an eccentric architectural wonder exploiting every feature of the hulking tree, every board and window integrated so finely with the structure of it that it almost looks like the tree has been hollowed out to accommodate this sky scraping edifice. "Watch your step," Jake advises, scaling the ladder, a trapeze-like creation of steel bars and brightly colored cables strung together by the hundreds. Dirk is eager to test his skill at climbing it as well, and although it is at first awkward, steel slipping out from his thick leather gloves, he makes it up through the trap door with Jake waiting at the top, his legs dangling and his grin as cocky as ever. " 'Bout time, Strider!" he announces, and Dirk looks around.

As he lets the trap door close gently, Jake bounds off to flip a switch, a gothic style lantern hanging on the high ceiling flickers on and illuminates the room in a gentle incandescent-yellow glow. Multi-colored lights shaped like butterflies strung up in all the corners luminesce together in a congress of whimsical ethereality. The floor is covered with a carpet of pillows and blankets and littered with picture books, pulled from shelves lining the walls. All the wires in the treehouse are bound with electrical tape, a thick, conglomerated tail running down through a hole in the floor, most likely connected to the generator Dirk saw behind the tree before they came up. Even the outside of the house and the branches are decorated in softly glowing white-gold lights.

"In there is the kitchen, in there is the bathroom," Jake begins, letting his body fall to the floor sloppily, arms lazily slung out in different directions as he indicated the corresponding directions, "and up the stairs you can get on the roof, but be careful if you don't know how to climb trees!"

"This place is amazing," responds Dirk, not bothering to ask how plumbing works. You don't ask how plumbing works in an enchanted treehouse.

"Well, what'd you expect, for us to warehouse our guest in some shoddy lean-to?"

"Treehouses where I come from are veritable shoe boxes," he responds with a slight smile.

"Ours is special," Jake answers him simply. "It's magical."

"Yep. Just like everything else on your enchanted island, huh?"

"Bingo!" he exclaims happily, grinning as he rolls onto his side, a silken sheet grabbing stubbornly to the fabric of his over shirt. When Dirk examines him now, in the dreamy lighting, he sees that they are diametrically different in appearances. Dirk is muscled and tall and pale and blond – Jake is swarthy and small and wiry, like a scrappy kid. "But you know, I'm planning to leave soon."

This piques Dirk's interest so much that he joins him in the mantle of linens, which he realizes consists of some kind of expansive, inflated mattress, and stares into his big, round eyes. "Leave? How are you going to do that?" Their faces are inches from each other, and Jake seems not to mind a bit. Dirk, however, is experiencing what he believes to be minor heart tremors. Have his lips always been that pink, or is it just the butterfly lamps?

"Well, I have a plan," Jake says quietly, but his voice is so soft that Dirk can now hear the crickets chirping outside in the forest. Or at least that's what he thinks it is, but there were no crickets in the future so it's impossible for him to be certain, however, never in a million years had he expected them to sound so musical. Maybe the island really did have some charmed quality. "But you would have to promise not to tell Grandma."

"I promise," he replies, trying not to sound eager, angling his head slightly so that the edge of his shades stops digging into the mattress.

"Pinky swear!" Jake insists, offering his tiny finger in a mutual establishment of the creed.

"For God's sake," mutters Dirk, wrapping his own digit, awkward and right-handedly, with Jake's. "I pinky swear." This was another one of those confirmed myths. Modern society indeed does practice the pinky promise.

"I'm going to steal the giant pumpkin and cross the ocean in it. I'm going to America!"

A painful, strangulating silence follows as Dirk tries to consider the gentlest way to crush a childlike optimist's dreams, and he draws a big fat blank. Go figure, the one time he needs his brain the most, it plunks out on him. All he can think to say is, "Jake, no you're not."

"Why not?" begins Jake indignantly.

"Because, in a nutshell, it's impossible. Science dictates that a ten-ton pumpkin will not float in the ocean, regardless of salinity," he answers matter-of-factly. "Furthermore, a voyage across the Pacific Ocean will take much more advanced technology than a gourd to navigate, and conditions in said gourd during the voyage will be at best fetid, at worst virulent."

"I don't understand any of that, and I don't care! Besides, it's not going to _float, _it's going to _fly_. Here, read this, maybe you'll understand."

Digging under a pile of blankets, Jake procures a small, worn copy of a notable piece of children's literature – Roald Dahl's _James and the Giant Peach. _He passes it off to Dirk smugly, who promptly hands it back to him. "Yes, I know. Crocodile tongues and giant insects and a big piece of produce that ends up smack dab in the middle of New York City. It's a bedtime story, Jake. It's bullshit."

"It's _magic_, Mr. Strider. And magic is only real for people who believe in it."

"It's only real for the delusional. Non compos mentis."

Jake's face has taken on a red shade, and they're both sitting up, Dirk trying to keep things at a below-confrontational level. "Are you not the one who arrived here in a time machine?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Explain _that_, scientist!"

Dirk is at a loss for words, because for once in his life, he can't explain something. He has lost an argument, to a starry-eyed, idealistic little pumpkin farmer. No, he can't recite the scientific measures used to perfect the time machine, can't account for the way it ended up in his closet. He can't explain who turntechGodhead is or how he knew it was his birthday, can't elucidate why his metal casket crash landed on a Pacific island instead of transporting him neatly to his Houston apartment. If time travel and witches and giant pumpkins exist, then maybe magic does too.

"You got me," he admits, watching the anger from his new friend's face subside. "I can't."

"Some things are just unexplainable," Jake confirms. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a ten-ton pumpkin to hollow out while my grandma's still asleep."

That crazy kid really _did _believe in magic, believed in it so whole-heartedly. "Wait, Jake," he says, making him stop, half of his body already having sunk below the floor of the treehouse. "You're gonna need an orchestrator for this little plan of yours. I'm in."

Watching his face light up, brighter and prettier than all the ethereal little butterflies in the world, made it all worthwhile. "You mean it?" he asks, eyes wide and full of something wonderful.

"Pinky swear."

With that, Dirk links their left hands together momentarily, then follows Jake down into the lantern glow of the enchanted air outside.


	3. Crocodile Tongues

Whether or not Dirk had been joking about the crocodile tongues back in the treehouse, it can't be helped, because Jake is fresh out of them, and stealing them from his seemingly omniscient grandmother was never an easy task. But despite this, having this mysterious future person to work with him by the orange light in the perennially burning lanterns serves as a catalyst for Jake.

His tendons ache in almost every muscle on his back and along his arms with unhealthy febrility, not that he ever complains because over time, this will all pay off. But _cripes, _he thinks he could really use some crocodile tongues right about now...

"Jake," begins his new companion, planting the blade of his shovel in the pulpy soil of the pumpkin patch, "your method of disemboweling this vegetable is rather reckless."

"Really?" calls Jake from inside the pumpkin. Every night he must shimmy through a small hole he has bored through the outside (now made even more conspicuous, since he had to widen it slightly to accommodate Dirk) and clear out the goop from the bottom. "How so?"

"Taking it from the bottom could trigger a veritable mudslide. You would be buried alive in stringy, foul smelling pumpkin flesh."

"Then suppose I'll just eat my way out," Jake muses in response, never one to take advice, especially advice advising against foolhardiness. Because that's what an adventurer does, or rather what he does _not _do.

He crawls back out to where Dirk is, sitting by his feet as he is still regarding the pumpkin. He's brilliant, really. Jake couldn't have wished on a star for a better last-of-the-human-race type man to fall out of the sky in a time capsule thingamajig or whatever the dickens happened. The moment of inactivity is a welcome break for his sore body, but Dirk has somehow scaled the pumpkin while he's not looking. "Strider, what are you doing up there?" he demands, watching in disbelief as Dirk produces his sword and does the unthinkable.

And here Jake had thought the fancy katana was just for show...

In seconds flat, Dirk has scalped the pumpkin in a very impressive movement and heaved the top off, some of the fibrous innards still attached to the cap. Jake nearly screams in dismay, running to the side of the gourd and pushing it slightly, rocking it, not that Dirk will ever lose his balance. "What have you _done, _Strider?! She's going to notice that right away!"

"O, ye of little faith," he responds, dangling the pumpkin scalp like a trophy, one foot knee-deep in goop, the other propped up on the sturdy rim like Captain Morgan. With that, he discards the rind off to the side, shattering a few ambient pumpkins in the process. Jake is not sure whether to be angry or overcome with nervousness, because Grandma is _not _going to tolerate this.

He just stands beside it, stunned and slack-jawed, projectile pumpkin flesh whizzing by his head, at a loss for words. Finally, Dirk's head appears, peeking over the immense orange wall and asking, "Are you gonna help me, or just stand there?"

Indecisively, Jake falters between climbing up the smooth side of the vegetable or just running back to his room. Dirk has committed to helping him after all, and abandoning him would be nigh treasonous, but somehow, Jake just doesn't get the feeling that he understands what true magic is all about just yet. He doesn't believe hard enough, or maybe even at all. Still, he grabs his shovel and clambers to the top, joining Dirk in the unstable mass of flesh.

Pumpkins are rather hollow vegetables to begin with, so Jake has never estimated this endeavor of taking more than a month. However, now with Dirk so ambitiously innovating his new methods for digging out the inside of the pumpkin, it could take a week. Maybe only a few nights. But still, time is not on their side, and they would probably need more crocodile tongues than Grandma had ever boiled to get this done in a night. "So Dirk," he begins, nearly losing his footing and sliding down to the bottom of the pumpkin. "What did you have in mind for covering this shebang up?"

"You are familiar with the term jack-o-lantern, right?"

"You're mental if you don't think she'll notice _that _right away!"

"Just calm your ass down, dude. I really need you to trust me on this."

Behind the impenetrable surface of black mirrored glass, it's impossible to discern what he's thinking. Jake begins to wonder if his trusting disposition had really gotten him into trouble this time, if Dirk was mad or evil or had some ulterior motives.

"I... I'm afraid I can't let you do that," he says seriously, stopping the digging to stare at where Dirk's eyes would be without the glasses. "You must stop!"

"Stop?" he repeats, watching carefully as Jake tentatively drops his shovel. "Well, ok."

"R-really?"

"No. Sorry about this, Jake."

"About wh—"

A peculiar throbbing and the sound of swing music greets Jake as he opens his eyes. He finds himself lying in the recovery position in a familiar pile of pillows, daylight streaming through the windows despite the fact that the string of butterflies is still glowing, like no one told them the sun came up. He sits up, his head painful and his cheek lubricated with saliva, and straightens his glasses as his eyes lazily locate his new friend, who may be a traitor by now, Dirk Strider, sitting in the corner with the old radio.

"What... What the devil happened?"

"Oh," he begins nonchalantly, his nimble fingers on the dials. "I knocked you out with a shovel last night after you threatened me."

"Threatened you?" he repeats. "I beg your pardon!"

"Whatever. Does this radio get any stations or what?"

"No. Just that one, so it'll do no good to sit there mucking about with it..." The comment was made a bit fiercely, but how friendly was a guy to be when he had been bludgeoned with a gardening tool? His fingers find the pain in his forehead and rub at it, despite feeling a gash. "Ow..."

Dirk is alert, smoothly traversing the treehouse to kneel in front of him. "Don't touch it, Jake," he says calmly, leaning in to look at it. "I still need to treat it."

"That would be rather ace of you," he mumbles in response.

"Yeah, but I need some medical supplies. 'You know where we could get any?"

"Grandma has some," Jake answers automatically. "Oh, Grandma! Great Caesar's Ghost, the pumpkin! Oh, fuck!"

"Calm down," Dirk scolds. "She's totally cool with it."

Gawping, Jake runs to the window. There out in the pumpkin patch is his grandmother and her faithful wolf dog Bec, admitting tourists to see the giant pumpkin, or what is now a giant Jack-o-lantern. "Why... How could... Isn't she..."

"Some advice: try to form the sentence in your head before vocalizing it. You sound like a moron." The blond has come to stand next to him, arms on either side of the makeshift window sill (and successfully pinning Jake in) to lean his head out slightly.

"Well, stone the crows and pickle the lizards!" he exclaims, ducking out from under Dirk's outstretched arm.

"You know what? Forget my advice. It doesn't seem to help you... Where are you going?"

"I have to get down there!" he responds, nearly slipping on the first rung as he fumbles to get on the ladder.

He slides down several of them and jumps off the last ten, a considerable distance that he has grown used to falling from anyway. He impacts heavily with the ground and scrambles up to run across the garden to where Grandma stands, collecting money from tourists as usual. He sidles up to her, and she doesn't acknowledge him, although she knows he's there. It would be impossible for her _not _to know he's there, she is a witch after all. Jake peers around to examine the pumpkin's new face, crisp, precise triangles and a three-toothed grin. Hundreds of candle sticks already littered the floor with wax drippings, giving the face a luminous glow.

"It's pretty marvelous, isn't it?" she asks without even looking at him. "And it's all thanks to Dirk! I'm thinking about making him my protégé..."

"Marvelous indeed..." Jake responds. Despite the fact that he is leaving the island, he still can't help but be put off by his replacement. He had never been the most innovative, but it was sort of his birth right to take care of things after Grandma was gone. Not that he wants to.

She suddenly turns to him, grinning. "I'm just kidding, Jake! You seem a bit on edge today. And what happened to your forehead?"

"Er..." begins Jake awkwardly, laying a finger to it.

"He got a little too rough last night at our sleepover."

Jake spins around, his heart pounding. Dirk has managed to sneak up on them and stands, slouching nonchalantly, his face unflappable. "Well, Jake, why don't you show Dirk to the lab? You know where the first aid kits are."

"Yes, Grandma."

"And after that, you two can tend the dahlias."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Deadly nightshade, balm of Gilead, dragon's blood, frog's breath... Just sitting on the counter, reading the names on the bottles in Grandma's spell cabinets makes Jake's head throb more. Dirk is perusing the shelves, suspiciously, as usual. "You know, labs are usually more scientifically equipped. In fact, there's nothing scientific about this place."

"You certainly are presumptuous, Mr. Strider. I'll give you that," he mutters as a response, sliding back the door on the hutch a bit more to reveal a jar between the stardust and the general plasma. Its contents are aglow in the shaded cabinet, and Jake strains his arm to reach them. He rolls his fingertips over the top until the jar is dislodged and catches it shakily, quickly stowing it behind his back. _Crocodile tongues. _Traditionally, they would be sealed in a parcel of some sort, because they eschew daylight. The little buggers get all shaken up and will scurry anywhere they can to be away from it. But the cabinet was dark anyway, and glass jars are more sanitary.

"What's that, Jake?" Dirk turns his discerning gaze on him.

"What's what?" he gets out, pressing his head awkwardly against the wall behind him.

"What did you say?"

"Oh, I've already forgotten."

Jake smiles disarmingly, and Dirk approaches him with the first aid kit in hand. Jake can feel the jar rattling behind him and drapes his shirt over them to calm them down. It wouldn't do much good for Dirk to catch him stealing, after all, even though he is the one he is conspiring with.

"So, about this pumpkin of yours," he begins, moving in close to apply the antiseptic with a cotton ball. "How do you propose that it will become airborne?"

"Strider, have you learned nothing?" He hisses slightly with the sting of the medicine.

"No, don't say magic. What spell do you know of that's going to lift a giant vegetable off the ground?"

"There's another way."

"Please tell me it has nothing to do with seagulls or gargantuan talking insects."

"Close, but no. Come on, I'll show you."


End file.
